‘The Whole Downtown Is Gone’ Winds, Rain Kill Dozens, Flatten Neighborhoods

Tornadoes and springlike thunderstorms swept across Arkansas on Saturday, flattening buildings, sweeping away mobile homes and flooding whole subdivisions. As many as 20 people were killed and 200 injured.

Storms also killed as many as seven people in Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio. Four people were missing in rising flood waters in Ohio. A search suspended Saturday night because of darkness was expected to resume at daybreak today.

Four people died in Arkadelphia, Ark., one of the hardest hit areas.

“It’s horrible. The whole downtown is gone,” said resident Jeremy Cox.

Police Chief Bob Johnston said one mobile home was left standing out of about 60.

Bill Pruett, 53, said a twister crushed five trailers in the park he owns in Little Rock.

“It was like playing chess - it would take one house and then leave one, it would take another one and then leave one,” he said.

Neal Wright, 11, heard sirens and alerted his deaf grandfather by making swirling motions with his hands. The two escaped before a tree fell on their house, demolishing it, said Sharon Wright, the boy’s mother.

Gov. Mike Huckabee warned Arkansas’s death toll could rise. “The number one concern is that we’ve got people buried under debris,” he said.

Huckabee said the state may have been hit with as many tornadoes in one day as struck all of last year.

“This was an absolutely extraordinary event of weather,” he said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency head James Lee Witt briefed President Clinton by cellular phone during the intermission of the Broadway musical “Chicago,” White House spokesman David Johnson said.

The Clintons are in New York for the weekend celebrating their daughter’s birthday.

“The president is quite concerned with the situation, both with friends and family there and that being his home state,” said Johnson.

Hundreds of homes in the Little Rock area were damaged, and two hospitals were treating 80 people.

“This is as bad as I’ve seen it,” said state police Lt. Robert Felcher.

The storms pulled the roof off Leah Wooten’s house in southwest Little Rock.

“I saw a big black cloud,” she said. “I started seeing everything flying around. I got into the bathtub and put a hamper over my head so glass wouldn’t fly into my eyes, and within a minute, it was over.”

Heavy rain, strong wind and downed power lines were reported across Arkansas, said Ray Briggler, a spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Services.

A tornado that struck Randolph, Miss., destroyed four homes and damaged nearly a dozen other homes and businesses. Four people were hospitalized.

The twister killed 50-year-old Huey Totor, throwing his body 75 feet from his mobile home, said coroner Barry Moorman.

“Parts of the mobile home were scattered over a large area,” he said. “Just the metal frame was intact.”

A record 9.6 inches of rain fell in Louisville, Ky. Rescue workers, some using helicopters, pulled people from the roofs of cars stalled in as much as 6 feet of water and carried others out of flooded homes.

Hopkinsville, in southwestern Kentucky, received about 8 inches of rain and officials ran out of “Road Closed” signs. The weather also canceled a congressional hearing scheduled for Saturday in western Kentucky because the Air Force decided it was too dangerous to fly House members into the state.